In the past local searches (product + locale) would occasionally return an “inventory” onebox if Google felt that it was more relevant than a Local 10 Pack. An example is the search “Real Estate + Locale” which provides a Google Base search box to explore available inventory.
Recently on the searches for “used cars + locale” Google has started including both the Local 10 Pack AND the Inventory Search Box.
Over time, Google has been increasing the granularity of their results as they have adequate data to provide meaningful results. Providing a list of currently available used autos in an area is certainly part of this trend.
For your non-US readers you must modify url address in this way :
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&gl=us&q=real+estate+chicago
Comment by Jean-Noël — April 18, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
hm….I love that type of information, from the perspective of a consumer.
It appears Google is aggregating information from different suppliers. I would think they are charging for this.
I looked through the syracuse car choices and played with the different ways to access data. it is very impressive.
kudo’s for google. this is effective.
Dave
Comment by earlpearl — April 19, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
Hi Jean
Thanks for the URL. I suffer from the “Google Must be the same for everyone” syndrome. Thanks again.
Dave-
Google does not charge for these feeds and they can be done via Google Base or XML. In the case of real estate they actively encourage this.
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal — April 19, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Mike, another great find. Google is certainly trying to hit both sides of the spectrum with user intent… does the user want to find cars online? or is the user trying to find a local used car dealer to go to and look at cars.
Certainly one more word would change the intent of the query to go either way, like “used car listings syracuse, ny” should go the way of the inventory box (but it doesn’t for me), and “used car dealer syracuse, ny” would go the way of the local onebox (it does for me). This way google hits both with little intrusion, and I would guess a low percentage of people using that query are actually looking for anything other than what those two items offer.
Comment by Michael Jensen — April 21, 2008 @ 9:35 am
Hi Michael
Yes, this is an “ambiguous” query like you said. It will be interesting to see if over time it switches one way or the other.
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal — April 23, 2008 @ 11:30 am